The Nixon Regime and Foreign Policy
Pachter, Henry
COMMENTS AND OPINIONS READING Robert Kennedy's posthumous account of the momentous Cuban confrontation, I felt a shudder descending my spine. Realizing that the story hinged on the...
...but the growing strength of the latter and the waning unity of the former now seem to have brought us to the end of this "system" or equilibrium...
...their wars provide opportunities which reckless tacticians of the big powers cannot resist...
...To boot, their own conduct has deprived the small nations of the right to talk morality with conviction...
...Until recently American superiority indeed was able to deter Russian expansionism in those areas where the U.S...
...I was led to fear the worst because I had listened to Nixon's acceptance speech at Miami, ending with that sticky story of the little boy who rose to high places through his virtuous efforts and thanks to a benevolent system...
...To replace the old system of blocs we clearly need a new system, but not the lack of one...
...an alliance against Communist China, or that both superpowers should operate on the tacitly agreed-upon theory that sooner or later they may find themselves aligned against a combination of ultra-red, black and yellow danger...
...Hence the Kremlin is more likely to raise its demands above the level Khrushchev felt safe to operate on, and the Kremlin is now less likely to be contained within boundaries Khrushchev felt constrained to respect...
...The emergence of the Soviet Union as a Near Eastern and Mediterranean power after the third Arab-Israeli war should be a lesson to ponder...
...Deterrence did a job, but it will not give the same assurance in the future...
...After the ICBMs whose approach still is detectable and the ABMs whose deployment converts the second-strike deterrent into a potential first-strike offensive system, we now have the MIRVs (Multiple IndividuallyTargeted Reentry Vehicles) which make havoc of defensive systems, the FOBS (Fractional Orbit Bombardment Systems) whose approach no longer can be detected in time for defensive measures to be taken, and the MOBS (Multiple Orbit Bombardment Systern), which soon may be hovering over our heads ready to be released—or maybe we shall see these deadly instruments chasing each other in space...
...Not so...
...hegemony in the Western Hemisphere...
...I felt the simile was ill-chosen because if one hot redder has a tank and the other merely a car, the chances are that the latter will have to yield...
...Deterrence has become much more mutual than it used to be in Kennedy's day...
...By that time, it may be too late, Mr...
...Can Horatio Alger be trusted to understand that this mighty force is to be used only for the sole purpose of avoiding its use...
...should offer the U.S.S.R...
...There is nothing more dangerous in international politics than two such opposing teams of clever cowards each reciprocating the other's tactical moves, and each determined by the irresistible pull of day-to-day advantages...
...they destroy lives and living conditions beyond anything that until recently the most reckless militarist could term an "acceptable risk...
...Or to return to Erich Fromm's simile: he may now be more right than he was in 1963 that it will be pure accident if we survive the next international crisis...
...In the international poker game, our man is likely to have a weaker hand and to be less sure of himself—a man who is not sure of himself is always inclined to bluff, and the game of poker is threatening to become Russian roulette...
...The idea behind neutralism and isolationism is that we need no "system" if each nation sticks to its knitting, refrains from interfering in areas where it has no business, and foregoes the opportunity to form profitable alliances...
...No one in his right mind would expect a similar asceticism from, say, a labor union or, for that matter, an academic institution, or even from a church...
...The Soviets have good reasons to remember now Mr...
...If both contestants have the same type of hot-rod car, neither is likely to yield...
...To stay ahead of China in the arms race, the superpowers will have to escalate their own atomic and missile capabilities, and they would have to do so in competition with each other...
...Ultimately, peace cannot survive unless the two superpowers agree to de-escalate their rivalries and to decelerate the race for arms superiority...
...is defending its own and allied interests...
...Nixon might be tempted to renew the Cold War strategy...
...Erich Fromm replied that pacifists must forbid themselves such thoughts...
...This will be so partly, as we have shown, because the Soviet military are likely to be more conscious of their strength and the Soviet leaders more aggressive in exploiting the new equation...
...While not negating the polarization of the big powers, it also threatens to open a Pandora's box of secondary conflicts...
...COMMENTS AND OPINIONS READING Robert Kennedy's posthumous account of the momentous Cuban confrontation, I felt a shudder descending my spine...
...partly because the new weapons and also some of the more conventional forces are now locked in power tests, crisscrossing all oceans and continents...
...We on the Left have been critical of the blocs, and therefore some of us have welcomed the spread of "neutralism...
...Containment has COMMENTS AND OPINIONS succeeded, but it no longer succeeds...
...The system came apart twice because blocs were formed that failed to maintain a "balance," or because the defenders of the status quo failed to contain the dynamic challengers, the "proletarian nations" or international rebels...
...We may see more polarization, even though the blocs may be disintegrating...
...On the other hand, there is no indication yet that Mr...
...In the past, imperial systems were territorially confined...
...or the U.S.S.R., while these two powers clash in many places...
...instead of a better organized community of nations, it offers us more anarchy...
...And even if they were to observe a tacit understanding on the Chinese Threat, that would not be suf ficient reason to bury their rivalry in other areas...
...Exhortation may be a supplement to policy, but it can never be a substitute for it...
...The essential thing is that such negotiations take place and that they deal with the substance of the matter: arms control, delineation of interests, settlement of territorial claims, security arrangements, defusing of incendiary disputes among third parties and satellite countries, etc...
...Indeed, the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 did not lead to war because Khrushchev finally recognized U.S...
...Nixon may find himself confronted with the dilemma of either "standing up to pressure" or losing the credibility of our own deterrent...
...We know the Russians make it a practice to "test" each new American President...
...Nixon is prepared to negotiate in any sense differing from what has been going on all the time...
...It will lead to the most vicious kind of isolation—'a belligerent, interventionist reliance on a stronger military establishment...
...Many clever men have urged that the U.S...
...Unfortunately, the chances are even less propitious because at the same time the Soviet Union has acquired leaders who, according to all available evidence, are small, petty, anxietyridden, and (as the Czech coup showed) ruled by panic rather than being rulers by confidence...
...Such a conception, it seems, would automatically eliminate the pernicious competition between the two present superpowers...
...COMMENTS AND OPINIONS 11 THERE ARE NOW on the drawing boards, or in various stages of testing, perfecting, and manufacturing, terrible new weapons which signify much more than an increase in the firing power of atomic weapons...
...It is to be feared that neither will be thinking in terms of preserving the security of the "system of states" (which permits deescalation of the arms race), because each will feel compelled to think in terms of his separate security (which "requires" not only escalation of the arms race but also a multiplication of conflict situations...
...The present international system seems ill-equipped for containing it...
...I had suggested that, regrettably, we could not say peace had been saved by the protest marches of our friends the world over, but had to admit, ever so sadly, that peace had been saved by the judicious application of deterrent power...
...it also is likely to fail in terms of welding a fi mer NATO coalition...
...In this situation we must guard against a familiar illusion...
...In the postwar situation the stronger and more conservative bloc did, for over 20 years, contain the weaker but more dynamic bloc...
...One shrinks back from the concept of threatening polarization and is tempted to substitute for it the concept of an emerging "Third World...
...he might have been tempted to exploit the superiority of his forces to a point where his opponent would no longer have been able to control his own need to stand up to the enemy (us...
...If each side must wait for negotiations until he can negotiate from strength, then neither will negotiate for the purpose of avoiding the kind of escalation that may make all future negotiations meaningless...
...Moreover, as Professor Brzezinski has pointed out (Encounter, November 1968), for the first time in history the intercontinental and space forces of the two super-powers will "overlap, criss-cross, float side by side and rub shoulders...
...But recently we have been advised that the Soviet nuclear establishment either has achieved parity with the U.S...
...But unfortunately, this conception is as illusory as it is barren...
...This may be either an understatement or an overstatement...
...Such assumptions are not just unrealistic, they are plain nonsense...
...The only place where nice behavior is rewarded by good notes is the nursery school...
...III UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, Mr...
...All too soon Mr...
...But in the future, crisis situations that can be described in terms of the 1962 confrontation will be rarer...
...Johnson's offers to negotiate a mutual renunciation of ABM systems...
...Unfortunately, the Third World is neither united nor powerful enough to bring moral pressure to bear on the imperialist powers...
...Negotiations, of course, have been going on all the time...
...Whether this is to be done through bilateral approaches, through the mediating efforts of third parties, in the framework of a high-level conference, or through international organizations is a practical matter...
...it is bound to lead to further escalation of all conflict situations and of the arms race...
...I may have to add a word of warning to some friends on the Left...
...He argued that my view was like saying hot rodders had saved their lives through ruthlessness, because they had not crashed into each other...
...But in any case, it is impossible to decide arbitrarily which is your enemy...
...finally, because the much overpraised "dissolution of the blocs" has added more anarchy to the free-for-all of international power contests...
...overlapping fluid or mobile imperial power is new...
...Realizing that the story hinged on the question whether to drive Khrushchev harder or to give him room for maneuver, I could not help wondering with anxiety: what might have happened if, instead of the Kennedys, Richard Nixon had come to that same crossroads...
...They penetrate all thinkable defenses...
...Nixon might either have panicked or not have given his opponent enough time for retreat...
...Before the era of the world wars, international anarchy was mitigated—and to a certain extent controlled—by the "system of states" that maintained a certain equilibrium and in emergency situations formed a "concert of powers...
...Would he have been as careful as Kennedy to avoid a head-on collision, as accommodating in victory, as prudent not to drive his adversary to despair...
...Nixon...
...The question became even more horrifying when I remembered a debate among DISSENT contributors after the Cuban missile crisis...
...Such an attempt is likely to lead to a double disaster...
...in significant areas or will attain parity in the near future...
...IV IT IS EVEN more unfortunate that another solution, as suggestive as it is simple, must be discarded as unrealistic...
...At present, China is no threat to either the U.S...
...A third adverse development is that the minor partners and the Third World no longer can be controlled...
...In his acceptance speech Nixon recognized that the era of confrontation has come to a close and the era of negotiation is beginning...
...It was not the corniness of this story that made me nauseous, but the idea of a potential President who still wonders how he got there...
...I could not help but answer: for all we know about Nixon, he might have felt the need to prove himself...
...Each certainly considers China a thorn in the other's side, yet they are unlikely to co-operate against her...
...He has said specifically that before we enter into meaningful negotiations we must first strengthen NATO...
Vol. 16 • January 1969 • No. 1
